Cape Fear River Tributary to Atlantic Ocean | |
---|---|
Location | |
Country | United States |
State | North Carolina |
County | Bladen Brunswick Chatham Columbus Cumberland Harnett Lee New Hanover Pender |
City | Lillington Erwin Fayetteville Elizabethtown Wilmington Southport |
Physical characteristics | |
Source | confluence of Deep River and Haw River |
• location | about 1 mile southeast of Moncure, North Carolina |
• coordinates | 35°35′48″N079°03′07″W / 35.59667°N 79.05194°W [1] |
• elevation | 154 ft (47 m) [2] |
Mouth | Atlantic Ocean |
• location | between Oak Island and Bald Head Island |
• coordinates | 33°53′08″N078°00′46″W / 33.88556°N 78.01278°W [1] |
• elevation | 0 ft (0 m) [2] |
Length | 191.08 mi (307.51 km) [3] |
Basin size | 9,120.61 sq mi (23,622.3 km2) [4] |
Discharge | |
• location | Atlantic Ocean |
• average | 9,959.87 cu ft/s (282.032 m3/s) at mouth with Atlantic Ocean [4] |
Basin features | |
Progression | generally southeast |
River system | Cape Fear River |
Tributaries | |
• left | Gulf Creek, Buckhorn Creek, Parkers Creek, Avents Creek, Hector Creek, Neills Creek, Dry Creek, Buies Creek, Thorntons Creek, Juniper Creek, Cedar Creek, Phillips Creek, Harrison Creek, Ellis Creek, Turnbull Creek, Mulford Creek, Bandeau Creek, Frenchs Creek, Black River, Northeast Cape Fear River, Barnards Creek, Mott Creek, Telfairs Creek |
• right | Wombles Creek, Little Shaddox Creek, Lick Creek, Bush Creek, Fall Creek, Daniels Creek, Cedar Creek, Camels Creek, Little Creek, Fish Creek, Poorhouse Creek, Upper Little River, Little River, Carvers Creek, Cross Creek, Rockfish Creek, Grays Creek, Willis Creek, Georgia Branch, Hucklebrry Swamp, Black Swamp, Bakers Creek, Browns Creek, Pemberton Creek, Hammonds Creek, Drunken Run, Donoho Creek, Carvers Creek, Plummers Run, Steep Run, Weyman Creek, Double Branch, Livingston Creek, Bryant Mill Creek, Grist Mill Branch, Bay Branch, Indian Creek, Cartwheel Branch, Alligator Creek, Brunswick River, Mallory Creek, Little Mallory Creek, Town Creek, Sand Hill Creek, Liliput Creek, Orton Creek, Walden Creek, Price Creek |
Bridges | Avents Ferry Road, US 401-NC 210, NC 217, I-295, I-95, NC 24-210, I-95, Tarheel Ferry Road, US 701, General Howe Highway (NC 11), US 17-74, US 17 |
The Cape Fear River is a 191.08-mile-long (307.51 km) [5] blackwater river in east-central North Carolina. It flows into the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Fear, from which it takes its name. The river is formed at the confluence of the Haw River and the Deep River (North Carolina) in the town of Moncure, North Carolina. Its river basin is the largest in the state: 9,149 sq mi. [6]
The river is the most industrialized river in North Carolina, lined with power plants, manufacturing plants, wastewater treatment plants, landfills, paper mills, and industrial agriculture. [7] Relatedly, the river is polluted by various substances, including suspended solids and manmade chemicals. These chemicals include per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), GenX, perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, perfluorooctanoic acid, byproducts of production of the fluoropolymer Nafion; and intermediates used to make other fluoropolymers (e.g. PPVE, PEVE and PMVE perfluoroether). Industrial chemicals such as 1,4-Dioxane and other pollutants have been found in its tributary, the Haw River.
In 2020, a national study of tap water found the highest concentration of PFAS in Brunswick County, which gets its drinking water from the Cape Fear River. [8]
According to the Geographic Names Information System, the Cape Fear River has also been known historically as: [9]
It is formed at Haywood, near the county line between Lee and Chatham Counties, by the confluence of the Deep and Haw Rivers just below Jordan Lake. It flows southeast past Lillington, Fayetteville, and Elizabethtown, then receives the Black River about 10 miles (16 km) northwest of Wilmington. At Wilmington, it receives the Northeast Cape Fear River and Brunswick River, turns south, widening as an estuary and entering the Atlantic about 3 miles (5 km) west of Cape Fear.
During the colonial era, the river provided a principal transportation route to the interior of North Carolina. [10] Today the river is navigable as far as Fayetteville through a series of locks and dams. The estuary of the river furnishes a segment of the route of the Intracoastal Waterway.
The East Coast Greenway runs along the river.
The Cape Fear River is polluted by industry, cities, and farmland in its drainage basin. [11] The pollution comes from both point source and nonpoint sources, including farms, city runoff, and erosion of the river's banks, which contribute pollution such as harmful chemicals and fertilizers, and larger sediments like suspended solids. [6] [11] [12] Pollutants include coal ash. [13] As with any river, the water quality varies in different regions, depending on abiotic and biotic factors. [6]
In 2020, a study found that striped bass in the river have the highest rates of PFAS documented in North American fish. [14] A 2018 study found that bass from the river had 40 times the amount of PFAS in their blood than did bass raised in an aquaculture facility. [13]
In 2020, studies by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality found "staggering" concentrations of forever chemicals begin dumped into the Deep River, a major tributary to the Cape Fear River. One sample contained PFOS at 1 part per billion, "more than 14 times greater than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's health advisory of 70 parts per trillion for drinking water", North Carolina Heath News reported. [8]
In 2020, a national study of tap water found the highest concentration of PFAS in Brunswick County, which gets its drinking water from the Cape Fear River. [8]
In July 2023, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services issued a fish consumption advisory for certain freshwater fish species from the middle and lower Cape Fear River due to contamination with perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS). [15]
Suspended solids refers to any particle (living or nonliving) discharged into an aquatic system that remains in suspension. These particles can find their way into rivers via nonpoint-source pollution or through larger point-source pollution events such as Hurricane Florence in 2018. The storm caused a dam to fail, which caused a mass leakage of coal ash into the Cape Fear River about 5 miles northwest of Wilmington, North Carolina.
GenX is a chemical in the group of manmade per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS used for nonstick, water- and stain-repellent items. GenX is a replacement PFAS, since older and more toxic PFAs are being phased out. [16] GenX is made at the Chemours plant in Fayetteville, NC and has gotten into the Cape Fear River from the plant's wastewater. [17] Like other PFAS, GenX does not easily break down and can accumulate in the environment. [16] Because of this quality, GenX can cause problems for both people and wildlife.
Chemours' wastewater put into the Cape Fear River poses a drinking-water issue for residents of the Fayetteville area and people further down the river. Several groundwater wells in Fayetteville had detections of GenX. [18] At the mouth of the river, the city of Wilmington uses the Cape Fear as a drinking-water source. Blood samples of a group of Wilmington residents showed detections of GenX. [19]
In several studies, GenX has been shown to affect wildlife. PFAS were detected in striped bass caught from the Cape Fear, and the chemical affected the liver and immune system. [20] In plants, GenX reduced the biomass and bioaccumulated in the organism. This bioaccumulation did differ between species. [21]
In a study done to test the ability of retention and how could the GenX chemical be transported in porous materials, results showed that for different forms of the GenX chemical the absorption rate was higher. This research is important to help future researchers understand the tendencies of this chemical. Contaminated sites should be inspected from the water to the soil due to the ability of GenX to travel/transport through porous material such as soil. [22]
The lack of information on the GenX chemical in North Carolina has led to the gap of knowledge about ways in which people may be exposed to these chemicals other than drinking water. Information is also limited on the health effects caused by the GenX chemical, little experiments on animals show liver damage, pancreas damage, etc. There are no federal guidelines regarding the GenX chemical. However, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has set a “health goal”, a non-regulated, and non-enforceable low contamination level where no side effects, over time, would be expected. [23]
Little is known about the effectiveness of GenX and PFEA removal from contaminated waters using methods such as ozonation and bio-filtration. Carbon in various forms can be used to treat water that has been contaminated. Experiments done with this technique showed that shorter PFAS did not absorb. [24]
Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a synthetic fluoropolymer of tetrafluoroethylene, and has numerous applications because it is chemically inert. The commonly known brand name of PTFE-based composition is Teflon by Chemours, a spin-off from DuPont, which originally discovered the compound in 1938. Polytetrafluoroethylene is a fluorocarbon solid, as it is a high-molecular-weight polymer consisting wholly of carbon and fluorine. PTFE is hydrophobic: neither water nor water-containing substances wet PTFE, as fluorocarbons exhibit only small London dispersion forces due to the low electric polarizability of fluorine. PTFE has one of the lowest coefficients of friction of any solid.
Brunswick County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the southernmost county in the state. As of the 2020 census, the population was 136,693. Its population was only 73,143 in 2000, making it one of the fastest-growing counties in the state. With a nominal growth rate of approximately 47% in ten years, much of the growth is centered in the eastern section of the county in the suburbs of Wilmington such as Leland, Belville and Southport. The county seat is Bolivia, which at a population of around 150 people is among the least populous county seats in the state.
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies, with a negative impact on their uses. It is usually a result of human activities. Water bodies include lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers, reservoirs and groundwater. Water pollution results when contaminants mix with these water bodies. Contaminants can come from one of four main sources. These are sewage discharges, industrial activities, agricultural activities, and urban runoff including stormwater. Water pollution may affect either surface water or groundwater. This form of pollution can lead to many problems. One is the degradation of aquatic ecosystems. Another is spreading water-borne diseases when people use polluted water for drinking or irrigation. Water pollution also reduces the ecosystem services such as drinking water provided by the water resource.
Perfluorooctanoic acid is a perfluorinated carboxylic acid produced and used worldwide as an industrial surfactant in chemical processes and as a material feedstock. PFOA is considered a surfactant, or fluorosurfactant, due to its chemical structure, which consists of a perfluorinated, n-heptyl "tail group" and a carboxylic acid "head group". The head group can be described as hydrophilic while the fluorocarbon tail is both hydrophobic and lipophobic.
Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) is a chemical compound having an eight-carbon fluorocarbon chain and a sulfonic acid functional group, and thus it is a perfluorosulfonic acid and a perfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS). It is an anthropogenic (man-made) fluorosurfactant, now regarded as a global pollutant. PFOS was the key ingredient in Scotchgard, a fabric protector made by 3M, and related stain repellents. The acronym "PFOS" refers to the parent sulfonic acid and to various salts of perfluorooctanesulfonate. These are all colorless or white, water-soluble solids. Although of low acute toxicity, PFOS has attracted much attention for its pervasiveness and environmental impact. It was added to Annex B of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in May 2009.
Nonpoint source (NPS) pollution refers to diffuse contamination of water or air that does not originate from a single discrete source. This type of pollution is often the cumulative effect of small amounts of contaminants gathered from a large area. It is in contrast to point source pollution which results from a single source. Nonpoint source pollution generally results from land runoff, precipitation, atmospheric deposition, drainage, seepage, or hydrological modification where tracing pollution back to a single source is difficult. Nonpoint source water pollution affects a water body from sources such as polluted runoff from agricultural areas draining into a river, or wind-borne debris blowing out to sea. Nonpoint source air pollution affects air quality, from sources such as smokestacks or car tailpipes. Although these pollutants have originated from a point source, the long-range transport ability and multiple sources of the pollutant make it a nonpoint source of pollution; if the discharges were to occur to a body of water or into the atmosphere at a single location, the pollution would be single-point.
Environmental toxicology is a multidisciplinary field of science concerned with the study of the harmful effects of various chemical, biological and physical agents on living organisms. Ecotoxicology is a subdiscipline of environmental toxicology concerned with studying the harmful effects of toxicants at the population and ecosystem levels.
Perfluorononanoic acid, or PFNA, is a synthetic perfluorinated carboxylic acid and fluorosurfactant that is also an environmental contaminant found in people and wildlife along with PFOS and PFOA.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are a group of synthetic organofluorine chemical compounds that have multiple fluorine atoms attached to an alkyl chain; there are 7 million such chemicals according to PubChem. PFAS came into use after the invention of Teflon in 1938 to make fluoropolymer coatings and products that resist heat, oil, stains, grease, and water. They are now used in products including waterproof fabric such as Nylon, yoga pants, carpets, shampoo, feminine hygiene products, mobile phone screens, wall paint, furniture, adhesives, food packaging, heat-resistant non-stick cooking surfaces such as Teflon, firefighting foam, and the insulation of electrical wire. PFAS are also used by the cosmetic industry in most cosmetics and personal care products, including lipstick, eye liner, mascara, foundation, concealer, lip balm, blush, and nail polish.
Perfluorobutanesulfonic acid (PFBS) is a PFAS chemical compound having a four-carbon fluorocarbon chain and a sulfonic acid functional group. It is stable and unreactive because of the strength of carbon–fluorine bonds. It can occur in the form of a colorless liquid or a corrosive solid. Its conjugate base is perfluorobutanesulfonate which functions as the hydrophobe in fluorosurfactants.
A perfluorinated compound (PFC) or perfluoro compound is an organofluorine compound that lacks C-H bonds. Many perfluorinated compounds have properties that are quite different from their C-H containing analogues. Common functional groups in PFCs are OH, CO2H, chlorine, O, and SO3H. Electrofluorination is the predominant method for PFC production. Due to their chemical stability, some of these perfluorinated compounds bioaccumulate.
Water pollution in the United States is a growing problem that became critical in the 19th century with the development of mechanized agriculture, mining, and manufacturing industrys—although laws and regulations introduced in the late 20th century have improved water quality in many water bodies. Extensive industrialization and rapid urban growth exacerbated water pollution as a lack of regulation allowed for discharges of sewage, toxic chemicals, nutrients, and other pollutants into surface water. According to the US geographical survey, the water area of the United States is approximately 264,837 square miles.
The Chemours Company is an American chemical company that was founded in July 2015 as a spin-off from DuPont. It has its corporate headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, United States. Chemours is the manufacturer of Teflon, the brand name of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), known for its anti-stick properties. It also produces titanium dioxide and refrigerant gases. It is currently being sued by the PA Attorney General, for knowingly exposing the public to PFAS.
Robert Theodore Davis Jr. is an American politician. He was elected to represent the 19th district in the North Carolina House of Representatives in 2012. Davis is a lawyer by profession.
FRD-903 is a chemical compound that is among the class of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs). More specifically, this synthetic petrochemical is also described as a perfluoroalkyl ether carboxylic acid (PFECA) and a Fluorointermediate. It is not biodegradable and is not hydrolyzed by water.
GenX is a Chemours trademark name for a synthetic, short-chain organofluorine chemical compound, the ammonium salt of hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid (HFPO-DA). It can also be used more informally to refer to the group of related fluorochemicals that are used to produce GenX. DuPont began the commercial development of GenX in 2009 as a replacement for perfluorooctanoic acid, in response to legal action due to the health effects and ecotoxicity of PFOA.
This timeline of events related to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) includes events related to the discovery, development, manufacture, marketing, uses, concerns, litigation, regulation, and legislation, involving the human-made PFASs. The timeline focuses on some perfluorinated compounds, particularly perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and on the companies that manufactured and marketed them, mainly DuPont and 3M. An example of PFAS is the fluorinated polymer polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), which has been produced and marketed by DuPont under its trademark Teflon. GenX chemicals and perfluorobutanesulfonic acid (PFBS) are organofluorine chemicals used as a replacement for PFOA and PFOS.
Michael Stanley Regan is an American environmental regulator. He has been serving as the 16th administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency since March 11, 2021. He is the first African American man to serve in the role.
Perfluorohexanesulfonic acid (PFHxS) is a synthetic chemical compound. It is one of many compounds collectively known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs). It is an anionic fluorosurfactant and a persistent organic pollutant with bioaccumulative properties. Although the use of products containing PFHxS and other PFASs have been banned or are being phased out in many jurisdictions, it remains ubiquitous in many environments and within the general population, and is one of the most commonly detected PFASs.
From the 1950s through the early 2000s, 3M disposed of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances produced during the manufacturing process of various industrial products in four dumping sites in Minnesota. These chemicals have contaminated the groundwater of over 170,000 residents of the Twin Cities East Metro Area, culminating in an $850 million settlement with the State of Minnesota in 2018.
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires |journal=
(help)Featured in Season 4 of the [TV series] "Outlander". Season 4 of Outlander, on IMDB